How to Hold a Pizza Party! | A One Day Pizza Dough Recipe

There’s nothing quite like making dough from scratch and this One Day Pizza Dough Recipe is super easy. It’s nabbed from the Ken Forkish book Flour Salt Water Yeast, which is worth purchasing if you’re a budding bread baker. I’ve simplified it a little for you in this blog post and cooking instructions are below. This dough can be frozen up to a month and defrost fully before using (we had leftover dough from New Years we used up).

One Day Pizza Dough

A wonderfully tasty same day pizza dough.

 Servings 5

Ingredients

• 700 g Water
• 2 g Instant dried yeast We used Allisons Easy Bake (Green Tub)
• 1000 g Double 0 white flour
• 20 g Fine sea salt

Instructions

1. Hydrate the yeast. Measure 700 grams of water out of the hot tap – but not too hot, around body temperature.
2. Put 2 grams of yeast in a separate, small container. Add about 3 tablespoons of the water to the yeast and set aside.
3. Combine the flour and the remaining water in a large mixing bowl. Mix by hand just until incorporated (don’t worry if it’s gloopy and not dough like). Cover and let rest for 20 to 30 minutes.
4. Sprinkle the salt over the top of the dough. Stir the yeast mixture in the pot with your finger; then pour it over the dough. Use a small piece of the dough to wipe the remaining yeast goop from its container, then throw it back in the tub.
5. Mix by hand, wetting your working hand before mixing so the dough doesn’t stick to you. (You can do this three or four times while you mix.)
6. Reach underneath the dough and grab about one-quarter of it. Gently stretch this section of dough and fold it over the top of the other side of the dough. Repeat three more times with the remaining dough, until the salt and yeast are fully enclosed.
7. Use the pincer method (Using a pincer like grip with your thumb and forefinger, squeeze big chunks of dough and then tighten your grip to cut through the dough. Do this repeatedly, working through the entire mass of dough. With your other hand, turn the tub while you’re mixing to give your active hand a good angle of attack.), alternating with folding the dough to fully integrate the ingredients. Cut and fold, cut and fold.
8. This dough then needs 1 fold. It’s best to apply the fold 30 to 60 minutes after mixing. After folding, lightly coat the dough and the bottom of the tub with olive oil to help prevent sticking (I used a spray oil). When the dough is about double its original volume, about 6-7 hours after mixing, it’s ready to be divided.
9. When you come to divide, moderately flour a work surface. With floured hands, gently ease the dough out of the tub. With your hands still floured, pick up the dough and ease it back down onto the work surface in a somewhat even shape. Dust the entire top of the dough with flour, then cut it into 5 equal-size pieces with a dough knife or plastic dough scraper. Each piece should weigh about 340 grams; you can eyeball it or use a scale. (Ours were about 320g each – there was some mixture loss!)
10. Shape the dough into balls. Shape each piece of dough into a medium-tight round, working gently and being careful not to degas the dough by over-working.
11. Put the dough balls on a lightly floured baking sheet, leaving space between them to allow for expansion. Lightly flour the tops, cover with plastic wrap, and let rest at room temperature for 30 – 60 minutes. Refrigerate for at least 30 minutes to make the dough easier to shape for cooking.

Recipe Notes

Do your resting and proofing at room temperature – as long as it’s not too cold – keep it away from any drafts. Don’t put it somewhere super warm, it’ll rise too quickly.

How to make your pizza

Once you’ve made your dough or maybe the next day if you’re making super ahead of your Pizza Party you need to cook it. You will need a pizza stone – I got mine for £12 off Amazon. Top tip – can be used for flat breads and naan breads too! Anyway, for pizza…

•  Pop your stone in the oven and set to max.
• Leave for 30-40 mins, then turn the grill on.
• Start to make your pizza – you need to be quick.
• Flour the surface and gently stretch your dough into a circle just smaller than your pizza stone.
• Place on a floured baking tray that has no edge (baking sheet).
• Add your tomato sauce and spread around the dough, 2-3 tbsp is suffice. (I blitz 100ml of pasatta with a punnet of plum tomatoes, 2 cloves of garlic and 2 tsp of oregano in a food processor).
• Add some cheese (not too much) – a mix of mozarella and gruyere can be very nice (omit if vegan obviously).
• Then add your toppings – be careful not to add to many, it’ll get hard to move on to the stone otherwise.
• Turn the oven back to max, open the door and transfer from baking sheet to stone.
• Cook for 5 minutes, then switch back to grill. Do this for 1-2 mins, keep an eye on it.
• Gently take out, switch back to oven from grill and start your next pizza!

When we held our pizza party, we supplied the pizza dough and got our friends to bring their favourite toppings! We had everything from vegan to meat feasts, and more!